Pig major acute-phase protein and apolipoprotein A-I responses correlate with the clinical course of experimentally induced African swine fever and Aujeszky's disease

In the present work, we studied the acute phase protein response after experimental virus infection in pigs. The animals were experimentally infected with African Swine Fever ( ASF) or Aujeszky's disease ( AD) viruses. The clinical course of ASF infection correlated with increasingly high levels of pig Major Acute-phase Protein ( pig-MAP) ( mean value of 6 mg/mL on day 6 post infection ( p.i.), from 6 to 9 times higher than day 0) and sharp apolipoprotein A-I ( apo A-I) decrease ( mean value of 0.5 mg/mL, from 4 to 10 times lower than day 0 on day 4 p.i.). AD-clinical signs appeared at day 3 p.i., both in vaccinated ( moderate clinical signs) and non-vaccinated pigs ( severe outcome within 48 h p.i.). Pig-MAP and apo A-I profiles also followed clinical signs ( changing from 0.70 mg/mL to around 3 mg/mL and from around 3 mg/mL to 0.96 mg/mL, respectively in non-vaccinated animals), with minor changes in concentration in the vaccinated group. Haptoglobin levels significantly increased in ASF and AD infected animals ( mean maximum values of 2.77 and 3.96 mg/mL, respectively). Minor differences for the C-Reactive Protein in the case of ASF were observed, whereas its concentration increased more than 7 times in AD-infection. The albumin level was not modified in either case. The correlation of clinical signs to our data suggests the potential use of pig-MAP and apo A-I in monitoring infections in swine.